Thursday, September 10, 2009

American Banking News:Proposed Debit Card Regulations Could Cause 1,000 Banks and 2,000 Credit Unions to Fail -- Proposed legislation by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) would require notice be given to customers at the ATM or point-of-sale terminal when a purchase is about to trigger an overdraft – and would give consumers at the transaction point a choice of whether to accept or reject the overdraft service and the associated fee. "According to Michael Moebs, an economic advisor for many banks and credit unions, Rep. Maloney’s legislation would effectively kill overdraft services, which could cause up to 1,000 banks and 2,000 credit unions to fold within the next two years," American Banking News reported. Why? Because 45% of banks collect more in overdraft fees than they make in profits...

A total of 358,471 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized last month, according to data provider RealtyTrac Inc. That’s up 18 percent from a year earlier, and down 0.5 percent from July, the Irvine, California-based company said in a statement. One in 357 households received a filing...

Many wise men have predicted the stock and bond markets will go into a free fall for decades once baby boomers start withdrawing money from their retirement accounts, but a new report this week by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that won't happen when boomers retire...

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NY Times:Tavern on the Green Files for Chapter 11 -- Nearly four months before Tavern on the Green, the landmark restaurant in Central Park, is to yield its license to another operator, the landmark restaurant in Central Park has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In a statement, the current license holder, Jennifer Oz LeRoy, chief executive of Tavern, said that the filing was “our only alternative given the current situation.” She said the decision was the result of “two factors — the extreme financial distress brought on by the current financial crisis and the City of New York’s decision not to renew our license.”

Early that morning, one veteran lobsterman shot and seriously wounded another on the Matinicus wharf, the peak of a dispute over whether the gunman’s son-in-law — a mainlander — could fish in the waters surrounding the island. The feud had been escalating for months, a symptom of the economic crisis battering lobstermen up and down Maine’s coast...